Valborgsmässoafton

On Thursday April 25, I was meeting with a Danish architect, Jan.  We meet every Tuesday and Thursday.  We were discussing moving our meeting time from 10AM to 9AM and the next meeting being on Thursday, May 2.  He asked me if I would be sober.  A strange question I thought, but given that I knew we had off work on May 1 for May Day, I just assumed it a funny comment.  A few days later a Finnish lady at work asked me if I knew about Valborgsmässoafton. ??? Well, I'm going to have to go with no.  She started explaining about the party on April 30 that signified the end of Winter and beginning of Spring.  I turned to my trusty friend Wikipedia, which explained it all (click here).  The English word is Walpurgis Night, and the Swedes just call it Valborgs (the "g" is silent).  It turns out that in Sweden the college kids really make quite a party of it and about 25,000 people come out to the city park to celebrate.  Now the "sober" comment is making a lot more sense!

Chris found a lot of news stories discussing the activities, and we decided we would make a day of it and see what all the hoopla was about.  I got 3 hours off early at work on 4/30, so the plan was for Chris to meet me at Centralen and we would walk over to the park.  I was so shocked to see that on my way to work at 8:30, the park was already full and tons of people were walking toward the park with chairs, coolers, and bags in hand.

Chris met me at 3:00 with a surprise picnic!!  We headed to the park and found a spot for our picnic.  The streets were crowded!

Just as we got inside the park, we saw a sunny area and decided to go ahead and claim a spot.

It was an awesome picnic with all my favorites, cheese, nuts, fruit, and crackers!  He had packed utensils, napkins, and dishes.

You may notice that I'm super bundled up, and you may also recall this is suppose to be a welcome spring celebration.  Have a look at the temp...

Maybe you can't read it, but the "feels like" reads 38!!  What a lovely day for a picnic =/

As soon as we lost the sun, we were up and moving.  We walked on through the park.  That's when our fun people watching picnic ended and some disgust set in.  As we walked, we began to see nothing but garbage.  Everyone had just thrown all of their trash on the ground. It was repulsive.

My friend Bea, from work, is very upset that I'm showing these pictures.  She is so embarrassed that this is what I'm showing the world.  Chris and I have been to a lot of festivals of way larger magnitude, and have NEVER seen anything like this.  Between the day and the night, bobcats came and scooped up all the trash.  At night, there is singing and the traditional bonfire lighting.  Chris and I decided to go home, drop off the picnic supplies, get some more layers, and head back for the singing.

Apparently someone was watching!!  It's interesting how you can still get entertainment out something you can't understand.  So this fairy said some words, then the bonfire to send winter away was lit.

We had a great night and were glad we went!